1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for severing a portion of a visible image from a film unit and mounting the same in a holder of the type adapted to be received by a slide projector.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, when a photographer wants his transparency prints mounted in frames suitable for use in a projector he must send them to a commercial establishment where they are put on an assembly line similar to that shown in British Pat. No. 1,382,895. There, sections of the film are severed, placed in frames or holders which are then sealed and moved to a bin from which they are taken and matched with the customer's order form for subsequent mailing to the customer. If the customer wants his reflective prints and his transparency prints cropped and mounted within similar frames he must make a special order with its attendant increase in cost. Hopefully, the prints will be cropped as requested and returned to the customer within a reasonable time.
Alternatively, the photographer may buy his own frames and do the cropping and mounting himself with an apparatus similar to that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,085,618. In this apparatus a section of a film strip is aligned with an aperture in a male die and a card having an aperture therein is located in alignment with the section of film to be severed. A lever is then depressed which, in turn, drives the male die forward first severing the film strip in two places and then advancing the severed portion into contact with an adhesive sheet which extends over at least a portion of the aperture in the card. One must then remove the card from the apparatus and trim it to a size which is compatible with a slide tray or a projector. Even then the resulting product suffers in comparison to that received from the commercial establishment. For example, since the severed section is in effect laminated onto the sheet, it can readily be seen that if the adhesive bond therebetween subsequently fails along an edge thereof, this edge may be hung up as the card is being moved into and/or out of its exposure position within the projector. Further, since the adhesive sheet extends over at least a portion of the aperture in the card there will be a problem in projecting that portion of the image in the severed section which is in engagement with the adhesive sheet.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that there is a need for a compact, inexpensive, manually operative slide cutting and mounting apparatus having means for cropping a larger image.